The 10 Best Teams in NBA History Who Missed the NBA Finals

The Chicago Bulls were the best regular season team this year, but they got ousted from the first round of the playoffs when Derrick Rose went to the ground with a torn ACL in the first game of the postseason.

They might be the best team to miss the finals this year, but they aren't one of the 10 best teams in history to miss the finals.

Basketball-Reference has a stat "SRS" that stands for Simple Rating System. It's a strength of schedule adjusted ranking structure to power rank teams.

Here are the 10 best SRS rankings by teams in NBA history who didn't make it to the NBA Finals. I imagine some will complain that SRS doesn't mean anything, but allow me this explanation.

In order to get to the top 10, I had to go 30 teams deep. The other 20 made the finals and the majority won them.

10. 1973 Milwaukee Bucks, 7.84

The 1973 Milwaukee Bucks, behind their superstar and MVP Kareem Abdul Jabbar, won 60 games and tied the Lakers for the best record in the Western Conference.

After opening up a 2-0 lead, ironically getting their second win on April Fool's Day, the Bucks may have felt safe that they were going to get the opening-round win against the Golden State Warriors.

Led by Rick Barry and unlikely hero Clyde Lee, who had only played 22 minutes per game in the regular season but led the team in minutes in the postseason, the Warriors shocked the Bucks, winning the next four games to the delight of their fans, and sent the heavily favored Bucks home early.

5. 1968 Philadelphia 76ers, 7.96

The 1968 Philadelphia 76ers were the defending NBA Champions, had the league's MVP in Wilt Chamberlain and won six more games than any team in the league. They had finally ended the run of the infamous Boston Celtics.

Chamberlain scaled back his scoring and became more of a team player than ever, and became the first and only center in league history to lead the league in assists.

They went into the postseason and knocked out the New York Knicks in six games. Then they took the first three games from the Celtics.

What could go wrong?

They dropped Game 4 110-105.

They dropped Game 5 122-104.

They dropped Game 6 114-106.

They dropped Game 7 100-97.

No injuries. It's just hard to play basketball with both hands on your throat.

1. 1972 Milwaukee Bucks, 11.91

Photo obtained from nbahoopsonline.com

For the third time, the Milwaukee Bucks make this list. The 1972 Bucks and the 1972 Los Angeles Lakers were two of the greatest teams to ever play. The Lakers won 69 games and the Bucks won 63 that year.

The Bucks had a 10.70 SRS rating. The Lakers had an 11.65.

The Bucks had an 11.16 margin of victory. The Lakers had a 12.28.

Both teams easily made it to the finals, which was much anticipated. It was a matchup between Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The Lakers would go on to win the series 4-2, but the Bucks actually outscored LA by 14 points in the series.